


Control

by Badwolf36



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Aftercare, Angst, BDSM, Derek Takes Care Of Stiles, Dirty Talk, Dom Derek, Dom Stiles, Dom/sub, Dom/sub Play, Eating Disorders, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Massage, Nogitsune Trauma, Panic Attacks, Praise Kink, Safeword Use, Safewords, Sub Derek, Sub Stiles, post-season 3b, under negotiated kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-01-14 23:42:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1282993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Badwolf36/pseuds/Badwolf36
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After (and their lives are always defined by “after.” “After” Derek’s family burned. “After” Scott got bit. “After” Gerard and the Kanima and the Alpha Pack and the Darach) the Nogitsune is pulled from him, Stiles becomes obsessed with control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Offer

**Title:** Control  
 **Fandom:** Teen Wolf  
 **Rating:** R  
 **Pairing:** Derek Hale and Stiles Stilinski  
 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Teen Wolf or any related properties.  
 **Warnings:** Set post-3B with spoilers up through the trailer for De-Void.

After (and their lives are always defined by “after.” “After” Derek’s family burned. “After” Scott got bit. “After” Gerard and the Kanima and the Alpha Pack and the Darach) the Nogitsune is pulled from him, Stiles becomes obsessed with control.

He had lost his control, given it up to the Nogitsune in a poor attempt to protect the people around him, the people he cared about, and the innocent people who just got in the way of the chaos.

But it was gone now, and he was left with a pile of bodies and bloody hands that never really washed clean.

He tries meditation, but hearing the silence inside his own head (or worse, hearing the Nogitsune’s taunts as echoes) sets him on edge.

He thinks about going down to the shooting range once, because that had cleared his head the few times his dad had taken him there as a kid, but the thought of himself with a weapon in his hand, or seeing one in the hands of someone else (his voice had begged, _demanded_ that Chris Argent shoot him) makes him nauseated.

For a while, he stops eating regularly. He skips a meal here or there, and it’s his choice. There’s nothing keeping him alive, nothing demanding that he put food in his mouth to keep going. And it’s a comfort to not have to keep shoving food that tastes like ash into his mouth.

But he loses weight that he can’t afford to lose and Scott takes him aside one day, presses a box of curly fries into his hands and says, “Please.” And Stiles hears the plea, the accusation, the “We didn’t save you just to lose you like this” that Scott doesn’t say. So he eats the curly fries and makes healthy food for his dad and does it over and over again until he feels like screaming.

Derek is the one who offers him a solution, in a tentative, stilted conversation held in, of all places, the gas station parking lot on a Saturday afternoon.

“You want control,” Derek says, after a few stuttering starts at small talk as they stand across from one another at one of the gas pumps.

“Yes,” he says, because he’s too tired to lie. Too tired in general.

“So take it back.”

Derek reaches into the Toyota and comes back out with a small spiral notepad and a cheap stick pen. He flips open the notebook, scribbles something on a page and then rips it out, stuffing it into Stiles’ hand. When Stiles looks at it, he finds an address, a time, and a room number.

“Tonight,” Derek says, and Stiles nods.

He goes, after assuring his dad that he’s going to be with Derek. In another time, that wouldn’t have been the reassurance it obviously is. But this is “after” and his dad nods and grips his shoulder tight and lets him leave.

Stiles uses his phone’s navigation to find the address, which turns out to be a local hotel. He’s so grateful that it’s not Derek’s loft (screaming and fighting and gunshots) that it takes him three times to get his knuckles to connect with the door.

Derek opens the door in a slate-blue Henley, soft-looking gray sweats and white socks, which is just strange enough (He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Derek in comfy clothes, let alone without his shoes) that Stiles freezes for a moment. Stiles runs a hand over his own clothes, the same jeans and plain black T-shirt he had been wearing earlier that day. He’d bought them “after,” another way to try to remove some of the Nogitsune’s taint from the image he sees in the mirror when he forces himself to look.

“Come in,” Derek says, then stands aside to let him. Stiles hesitates (Is he the one moving his legs forward? Really?) before he finally enters. The hotel room is just an ordinary hotel room. There’s a nightstand with a lamp and an alarm clock, a TV on a dresser across from that, and two queen beds with dark green bedspreads dominating the room. There’s an open closet door to his right that reveals a black duffel bag sitting at the bottom of it, and another open door that leads into what Stiles is pretty sure is a bathroom.

Stiles moves further into the room, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed farthest from the door.

Derek shuts the door behind him and takes a seat next to Stiles on the bed, respectfully (fearfully?) leaving a foot of space between them.

They sit there in silence for the space of a few heartbeats before Derek takes a breath and comes out with, “Have you ever heard of BDSM?”

Stiles chokes. He can’t even look at Derek, so he stares instead at the generic-looking painting of a lighthouse that’s hung on the wall across from him. He can feel Derek beside him, still waiting patiently for an answer.

“Porn,” Stiles responds shortly, “and Wikipedia.”

Stiles sees Derek nodding out of the corner of his eye, and can’t quite believe that Derek just asked him that, or that he answered.

“Not realistic or entirely accurate, but it’s a start. Do you know that it doesn’t have to involve sex, if you don’t want it to?”

 _That_ gets Stiles to look up, eyes locking with Derek’s.

“What are you offering me?”

Derek’s green eyes are hard to read, so Stiles can’t really understand what’s happening until Derek puts a hand on Stiles’ knee before slipping down off the bed to kneel in front of Stiles.

Stiles still doesn’t understand it then, and he doesn’t want to assume, so he repeats his question, “What are you offering me, Derek?”

“You. In control. Of me,” Derek says, the words soft and slow. He squeezes Stiles’ knee, then moves his free hand to Stiles’ right one, drawing the limp fingers into his own and moving them up until they’re wrapped gently around Derek’s throat.

Stiles loses his breath abruptly.

“Are you serious?” he asks, voice going high without his permission.

“Yes,” Derek says without hesitating.

Stiles’ hand twitches, sweaty fingers slipping on the warm skin of Derek’s throat.

“I…OK.”

Derek lets out a breath and his pulse leaps under Stiles’ fingertips. Stiles realizes, with no small amount of shock, that Derek is nervous, maybe just as much as he is.

“Do we…shouldn’t there be some rules?” Stiles offers.

“Safewords,” Derek says calmly, his voice not betraying the hint of nervousness that his body already has. “For both of us.”

“Right. Umm…” Stiles’ fingers twitch again as he thinks about it. Then the perfect word pops into his head. “Nogi…”

“Not that one,” Derek interrupts, putting his other hand on Stiles’ opposite knee.

“It would work,” Stiles says, although his argument is half-hearted at best.

“It would be the only thing you could think about, even if you were enjoying what we’re doing,” Derek counters.

Stiles mulls that over for a moment, and knows Derek is right.

“Red?” he tries, and Derek nods, chin hitting the top of Stiles’ hand. “You?”

He’s honestly expecting something like “fire” or “wolfsbane” or even “Argent,” but he figures Derek would avoid words like that for the same reason he just gave Stiles.

“Omega,” Derek says, and Stiles nods in understanding. He moves his hand from Derek’s throat to his head, stroking Derek’s surprisingly soft hair (he must have showered recently) back from his forehead.

“That will work. I can remember that. You say that and we stop everything.”

“Same,” Derek says, pushing up into Stiles’ caresses in a way that Stiles is sure Derek will deny if he points it out. “I won’t be angry.”

Stiles wants to argue that he’ll be the one ordering Derek around, so it’s really Derek they should be concerned about when it comes to safewords, but he doesn’t. He’s found that he talks a lot less these days, considers his words much more carefully. After the Nogitsune had used it like poisonous barbs, he can’t stand the thought that his babble could harm someone, in any way.

He looks down, not sure when he started staring at the lighthouse painting again. He finds Derek has closed his eyes and that his own hand is trembling against Derek’s head.

“Are we really…why?” He wants this, he does, he’s already hard, but he has to know Derek’s motives, has to understand _why._

Derek pulls away from him and stands up before coming to sit back at Stiles’ side, this time pressing their hips together.

“Because I understand control. Having it. Losing it. Because I understand being manipulated and having it end in other people’s deaths.”

Stiles flinches, but Derek doesn’t elaborate. After a moment, he finds himself matching his breathing to Derek’s, taking in one steady breath after another. He also finds himself leaning into Derek’s side, the heat from the other man soaking into him.

“That’s…OK. Yes. How do we…?”

“Tell me,” Derek says, gripping Stiles’ knee again. “What do you want?”

Stiles doesn’t let himself think about it much, because he knows if he does, he’ll start questioning everything, including whether he’s really awake or not. As it is, it’s a struggle not to start counting his fingers.

“Take off your shirt,” he says, and his voice only shakes a little.

Derek stands and walks forward a few steps before pivoting to face Stiles. He crosses his arms in front of himself, hooks his fingers under the Henley’s hem and draws it up and over his head in one smooth movement.

Stiles swallows so hard his throat clicks and he has to clench his clammy fingers into the bedspread.

“Toss it on the other bed,” he adds when Derek just holds the shirt in his hands.

Derek does so, letting a tiny (maybe encouraging?) smile grace his lips.

“Now you should…uh…get on your knees again.” He flushes as he says it, but Derek just kneels down gracefully, knees landing on either side of Stiles’ tennis shoe-clad feet on the thin multi-colored hotel carpet.

“That’s good,” Stiles murmurs, reaching out to brush an errant lock of dark hair back from Derek’s ear. “I still can’t believe this is happening.”

“It’s happening right now,” Derek says softly.

Stiles ducks down and forward, pressing a soft kiss to Derek’s smooth lips. After a second, Derek kisses him back, licking over Stiles’ lips before nipping him lightly.

Stiles pulls back, flushed and grinning. His dick is almost fully hard in his jeans, which is really uncomfortable, but when he looks down he’s gratified to find that Derek’s sweatpants are tenting upwards a little.

“Alright, yes. Definitely need to do that again.”

Derek huffs out a short laugh before locking eyes with Stiles again.

“Tell me.”

Stiles reaches out and pats Derek’s head once more, savoring the feel of the silky strands of Derek’s hair underneath the pads of his fingers. He sort of wants to just pet Derek until they both fall asleep, but he thinks of how Derek had put his fingers around his throat. His cock twitches hard with the thought, so he figures that’s something he’s okay with.

He moves his hand from Derek’s head to his throat, squeezing a little. He feels Derek’s Adam’s apple bob against his palm as the other man swallows.

He’s in control of this, in control of Derek. And in that moment, looking at Derek and having him look back at him with trust is overwhelming. He feels powerful and comfortable in his skin in a way he hasn’t felt since before the Nemeton, much less the Nogitsune.

And then Derek shuts his eyes, and the connection between them is broken.

Stiles looks again, and instead of seeing Derek willingly giving him his trust to do what he wants with his body, he sees his hand cruelly twisted around Derek’s throat, nails digging into the tender flesh there. He sees Derek’s mouth open like he’s gasping for breath, fighting for his life like he’s done too many times.

He sees a shirtless Derek forced to his knees, and there’s no one here but him to do the forcing. He is hurting Derek, _torturing_ Derek and he can hear a voice, a slick, oily voice, whisper in his ear, “I’m going to kill all of them. One by one.”

He thinks of shoving his hand into the onis’ chests, plunging his fingers into their core and ripping out the very essence of them, that little firefly glow. He thinks of doing that to Derek, shoving his hand into his throat, his chest, and pulling out that red, red heart that’s been scarred and broken and crammed full of joys and hopes that have burned to nothing more than gray ash.

Black spots erupt in his vision and he chokes a few times before he gets out “Red. Redredredredredred.”

Derek’s eyes snap open as Stiles starts hyperventilating, but Stiles isn’t paying attention to him anymore. Stiles rips the hand that had been on Derek’s throat away so he can twist his fingers into his T-shirt over his heart, clawing at the flesh underneath the cotton with blunt fingernails.

“Stiles?” Derek asks.

“Red,” Stiles gets out again, standing so quickly his knees buckle a little. Derek reaches for him, but Stiles pushes him back, sending him sprawling.

Seeing Derek laid out because of something he did snaps some fragile little part of Stiles that he’d hastily patched together in the aftermath of what he (the Nogitsune) had done.

He flees to the bathroom, slamming the door and locking it behind him before he slides down the length of it. He puts his shaking hands out in front of himself.

“O…One,” he stutters out.

“Stiles?” he hears from the other side of the door. “Talk to me. Tell me what happened.”

“Two. Th…three.”

“Come on, Stiles. It’s okay.”

“Four. Five. S…ssss…six.”

“You’re awake, I swear. It’s gone.”

“Se…seven. E…eight. Nine.”

“Ten,” Derek says, voice muffled by the door. “It’s real, Stiles. I swear it is. I’m not mad or upset. I just want to talk.”

Stiles looks at his fingers, and they blur before his eyes, become covered with bandages.

“No. No. No! Nononononono! Please, I don’t want to hurt them! Just let me die! Let me die! I don’t want to hurt them!”

“Stiles!” Derek yells, pleading with him now. “Open the door! It’s okay, I swear.”

Stiles feels his breathing speed up beyond his control, the panic attack (and that’s what it is, he knows this sensation far too intimately) gripping him tight.

“I’m coming in, Stiles. Your heartbeat is going out of control.”

“Don’t,” he wheezes out, but he’s not sure even Derek’s enhanced hearing could parse out what he just said.

There’s a crack as Derek breaks the doorknob off, but Stiles, already weak and dizzy from the lack of oxygen that his hyperventilating has caused, slumps to the side until his head thuds dully against the cool side of the porcelain bathtub and he passes out.

***************

When Stiles comes to, his chest hurts and he’s overwarm. He’s cocooned in something, pinned on his back by a steel rod over his chest. He swallows a few times, and his tongue feels a little thick in his mouth, but manageable. There’s light when he blinks his eyes open, but it’s dim, like it’s coming from a single bulb. Probably a lamp, he decides. The light is throwing some lumpy shadows onto the cream wall to the side of him, and before he can figure out where he is, he hears something suck in a breath behind him.

He instantly thinks of the Nogitsune stalking around the edges of the Eichen House basement while he slowly froze to death, its breath rattling as he struggled to answer its riddles, struggled to do the honorable thing and die before he hurt his friends. (He failed. The McCalls had pulled him from his dream, pulled him from Malia’s den before he could passively commit suicide. If he would have died then, so many people would still be alive. His mind drifts toward one death in particular, like it always does, and he feels his breath hitch up in his already pain-filled chest.) His eyes slam shut.

“Stiles,” someone says, and his name doesn’t rattle like it did against the Nogitsune’s many pointed teeth. “I know you’re awake. I want you to take a deep breath, and hold it for three seconds before letting it out again. OK?”

Stiles doesn’t have the strength to nod, but he does what the calm voice asks, and takes in a deep breath. It hurts, and his lungs burn, but he holds it as the voice counts to three and then he lets the air out in a rush.

“Again,” the voice asks of him, but it’s not really a question. He does it, the voice guiding him the entire time. The process repeats five more times before he opens his eyes and takes a deep breath all on his own.

“Hey,” Derek says, his face looming into view above Stiles.

Stiles feels tears gathering in his eyes, although he doesn’t know why.

“Hey, hey, no. Ssssh.” Derek lays down at his side as Stiles pieces together the here and now before trying to put together the past. He’d learned quickly that it was easier that way.

The thing pinning him down is Derek’s arm, which is slung across his chest. The reason he’s too warm is because Derek is pressed up against his side (werewolf body heat) and because he’s wrapped snuggly in two thin, cream-colored, plush blankets and the comforter from the bed he’s lying on and the one from the other bed.

His chest hurts because he had a panic attack in the bathroom, one so bad that he’d lost consciousness. And he’d had a panic attack because…

He jolts up, which turns out to be futile because between the blankets and Derek he’s thoroughly constrained.

“I don’t understand.” The words come out in a harsh croak as his head thumps back against the white hotel pillow.

There’s a pause, and then Derek says, “I’m sorry.”

Stiles twists his head, the only thing he can really move, until he’s nearly nose to nose with Derek.

“Why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything wrong. _I_ was the one who…”

“No,” Derek interrupts. “You weren’t ready for that. We…I shouldn’t have pushed you to try something like that.”

Stiles tries to at least get a hand free so he can touch Derek, but he’s pretty firmly bound.

He wiggles against the blankets. He can feel that he’s still wearing his boxers and T-shirt and socks, but Derek must have stripped off his tennis shoes and jeans before wrapping him up. Immobile as he is, it occurs to him that he can’t hurt Derek, can’t hurt anyone, and he goes a bit boneless with relief at the thought.

He hums a little in contentment before he remembers that Derek is blaming himself for what happened earlier.

“I wanted to,” he says. “You didn’t push. I wanted to. I just…”

“What?” Derek asks, and Stiles directs his gaze at the cream-colored stucco ceiling so he doesn’t have to look at Derek’s face and try to parse out the emotion there.

“I…it was too much like…when I was over you…bad,” he finishes lamely. And he used to be so _proud_ of his articulation.

Derek doesn’t comment on that though. Instead, he asks, “How are you feeling?”

Stiles snorts.

“We’re not usually the type of guys who have those types of chats.”

“Stiles,” Derek chides, and it’s half-sympathy, half-command.

Stiles mulls it over, trying to get his words in order before he responds. Finally, he says, “I’m sort of roasting here in this little blanket burrito thing you’ve got going for me. My chest still kind of burns, but it always does that after a panic attack, so nothing new there.”

He pauses for a minute before continuing, “And I still don’t know why you’re doing this, even though you gave me your reasons.”

Stiles flicks his eyes to the side to see that Derek is now contemplating the ceiling, too.

Derek opens his mouth to answer finally, and Stiles is suddenly so sure he’s going to say everything that happened was a mistake that he freaks out a little.

“I want to try again!” he blurts out.

Derek goes up on his elbow beside him at that, using the angle to look at Stiles clearly. Stiles does his best not to squirm or fidget or let his eyes dart around like he wants to do. Instead, he concentrates on Derek’s eyebrows since he can’t quite look Derek in the eyes.

Finally, after studying him for what Stiles feels is an overlong period, Derek says, “I gave you my reasons for wanting to do this. You didn’t give me yours.”

Stiles opens his mouth to protest before snapping it shut.

He had told Derek he wanted control, but he hadn’t expressly told him _why._ He thought the reason was obvious, _knew_ it was obvious, but he hadn’t given Derek the same honesty the man had granted him.

Trying to gather his thoughts, he looks back up at the ceiling. He’s back on Adderall and it’s helping, but sometimes he still feels like he’s thinking enough thoughts for two people, and that’s usually enough for him to start reading everything close to him to check that he still can.

“All I ever wanted to do was protect people. My mom. My dad. Scott. Mrs. McCall. Lydia. … You.” He pauses. “It used that against me. Over and over. It threatened my dad. It tried to kill you and Allison’s dad. It told me to give in or it would have manipulated Oliver to shove a drill through Malia’s brain. It manipulated Scott, made him take in all that hurt from Isaac and Coach and it killed all those people and _I_ twisted that sword inside my brother and…”

Derek leans forward, cutting off whatever Stiles is going to say next by sealing his lips over Stiles’. Stiles feels his eyes widen before he lets them slip shut, letting Derek control what happens next.

When Derek breaks away, it’s to glare at him. It’s so familiar that Stiles feels the gloom he was descending into lift a little.

“Never ‘I.’ You didn’t have anything to do with the Nogitsune’s actions.”

And just like that, Stiles’ mood sours again.

“People are dead because of me, Derek. I don’t think an ‘I’ is really misplaced here.”

“So you wanted to hurt us? Murder us? Tear us apart?”

“No!” Stiles is horrified Derek would even ask him that, but when he sees the look in Derek’s eyes, he gets the point the other man is trying to make. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Derek says. “Oh.” He lets his elbow collapse and the rest of him goes down after it, his upper torso ending up half-draped over Stiles’ prone body.

“You still haven’t told me your reason yet,” Derek says after a while, his breath gusting warm over Stiles’ collarbone.

Stiles twists his head in the other direction, looking at the heavy blackout drapes that are blocking the outside from view.

“I just want to feel safe again. Anywhere. Everywhere. Especially in my own head.”

“And you panicked because…?” It’s not an accusation, just a question. Derek wants to know. Stiles isn’t sure he’ll ever be used to that, no matter how far their relationship (and oh, isn’t it strange to think of what they have together as a _relationship_ ) has come recently.

“Because I don’t want to have power over you. _It_ did, and I want to stay as far away from those memories as possible. I’m never going to get over what I…it did, but if I can get a little distance from it, I think it would help. I _want_ it to help.”

“Mmm,” Derek hums, and Stiles feels the vibrations even through the blankets.

“Derek?”

“Are you sure you want to try again?” Stiles nods, then realizes that Derek still hasn’t moved his head from his chest.

“Yes. I do.”

Derek blinks his eyes open and Stiles looks down to observe the clear, almost earnest expression on his face.

“Then we’ll try something different. And if that doesn’t work and you still want to keep going, we will. I don’t want you to think one bad experience means that we stop trying. If you think it’s going to help, we’ll try to make sure it does.”

Stiles lets out a shaky breath.

“That’s…OK. Good. That’s good. ‘Do or do not, there is no try.’ Well, except we will be trying. With sex things maybe. Which, it’s really weird that George Lucas had Luke and Leia kiss, because I’m pretty sure he already had it planned out that they would be twins, which, eww. No one needed to know about his incest fetish. And…”

“Stiles,” Derek interrupts, and this time he just looks bemused. “Why don’t we take a rest and talk about the fetishes of film directors later?”

“Uh, sure. Absolutely.” He fidgets a little.

“What?”

“I wasn’t kidding about the roasting. I’m sweating so bad right now.”

Derek snorts.

“Fine.” He moves off the bed, leaving Stiles to roll a bit as his weight depresses the edge of the mattress.

Derek then sets about unwrapping him, alternately tugging and pushing at him until Stiles can struggle free from the blanket cocoon like a particularly lanky and ungainly butterfly.

“Ugh,” he says when the chill of the hotel room’s overly processed air hits his skin. He collapses back into a sitting position on the other stripped bed. Derek snorts again and then starts shaking the covers and blankets out over the bed they were just occupying.

“Better?” Derek asks sarcastically, but Stiles just nods.

“Yeah, actually.” And then, struck by a sudden fit of honesty, he adds, “It was kind of nice, though. Being held down. I couldn’t do anything bad. Couldn’t do anything _good_ either, but that was…it was okay.”

Derek starts fluffing a pillow so aggressively Stiles hears the seams start to rip. When Derek notices, he lets the pillow drop back to the bed.

Stiles finally glances at the glowing red numbers of the alarm clock.

“12:36” it reads.

“Huh,” he says. He’d been out longer than he thought.

Derek flicks back the newly-straightened covers and blankets with one hand and gestures for Stiles to get in. Stiles nods, but doesn’t move.

One of the thoughts he’s been harboring in a dark corner of his mind finally gives itself voice as “I tried to commit suicide.”

Derek freezes, just for a second, but Stiles catches it.

“I didn’t want to hurt people. I wanted to stop it before I even knew what it was. I tried. I just…I wanted you to know that I tried.”

Derek crosses around the end of the bed and comes to stand in front of Stiles. He slides his hand under Stiles’ armpits and roughly yanks him up. And then, to Stiles’ utter surprise (and he shouldn’t be surprised; none of them are the same anymore), Derek shoves his face into Stiles’ neck and pulls him into one of the tightest hugs he’s ever received.

“I’m glad you survived,” Derek says when he pulls back.

“But all those people…” And Derek pulls Stiles in again, this time cupping the back of Stiles’ skull with one large hand and shoving Stiles’ face into Derek’s bare chest.

“ _You_ survived. And I’m glad.” He turns them both so that Stiles’ back is to the turned-down bed.

It’s sort of a slow-motion tackle that Derek performs next, sending them both back onto the mattress. Stiles wheezes as Derek, despite being careful, manages to knock the breath out of him.

“Not all of us survived,” he says when he can breathe again. By that point, Derek’s tapped his side and legs until they’ve ended up curled together, face to face and knee to knee, the blankets over them.

Derek sighs.

“I know.” He doesn’t try to say it’s okay, because it’s not, and Stiles appreciates that.

Stiles shuts his eyes, feeling the exhaustion that’s refused to leave his bones settle deeper. “Sleep debt” they had called it at the hospital, and Stiles had felt (still feels) like he’ll never feel comfortable in his own skin again, never trust that he’ll wake up from a dream with full control of his body.

“I just…I tried,” he says feebly.

Derek clamps his left hand around Stiles’ right bicep. The pressure and warmth are grounding and Stiles relaxes slightly, muscles loosening.

“I know,” Derek says softly. “I also know trying sometimes isn’t enough.”

And Stiles, tears springing up behind his closed eyelids, realizes that Derek really _does_ know.

His betas. His family. Paige. He knows what it’s like to try to protect someone and have them end up dead instead.

The tears start rolling down his face without his consent and he finds his breath hitching as he shifts down and presses his face into Derek’s chest.

“Sor…sorry,” he sobs out as he clutches Derek’s shoulder and opposite hip tight, fingers scrabbling against skin and cotton.

Derek starts stroking his hair, sliding his free arm under Stiles’ shoulders and pulling him up so Stiles is settled against Derek’s chest and pressed all along his side.

“I’m here,” Derek murmurs, and Stiles feels a gentle touch against his hair that feels like a kiss.

Stiles tries to stop crying, but each time the tears taper off, he thinks of the blood, _so much blood_ , and he’s off on another jag.

Derek endures it in near silence, occasionally stroking Stiles’ hair or rumbling something that Stiles feels more than hears.

When he finally runs out of tears and can take a full breath, he pushes up onto his elbows and blinks his sore eyes at Derek.

Derek raises a dark eyebrow at him before looking down at his chest. Stiles follows his gaze, and is mildly horrified by the mess of tears and snot he finds smeared over Derek’s pectorals.

“Oh. That’s gross.”

Derek’s second eyebrow joins the first near his hairline.

“Clean-up?” Stiles offers, wrinkling his nose. His face feels stiff from the tears, so he could use a scrub as well.

Derek nods in agreement.

They climb out of the bed and plod to the small bathroom. Stiles thoroughly wets one of the white terrycloth washrags that had been sitting in a small stack and wrings it out before handing it to Derek. Then Stiles grabs another washrag off the stack and repeats his actions before burying his face in the cloth. He sucks in a deep breath, inhaling warmth and the overly strong scent of whatever detergent the hotel uses.

He scrubs until his face is feeling a little raw and Derek snags his right wrist, drawing it and the rag away.

When Stiles looks at him, Derek’s chest is damp, but snot-free.

“Wow, major uncool points there.”

“I don’t care, Stiles,” Derek responds, and the funny thing is, Stiles believes that.

“Bed?”

“Yeah,” Derek agrees. He gestures for Stiles to leave first and he does. He goes back to bed and sits down, swinging his legs up onto the bed and tucking his feet under the bunched-up blankets and covers.

Derek comes back into the room with a glass of water, which he hands to Stiles. As soon as Stiles has the glass securely in his grasp, Derek starts scrubbing at the back of his neck with his right hand. Stiles finds the gesture oddly sheepish, which is only confirmed when Derek says, “I should have led with the water. Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Stiles says after he’s drained half the glass with small sips. “We’re both sort of terrible at this.”

He lets out a small chuckle, which is as much of a surprise to him as it obviously is to Derek. Derek’s lips quirk up in half-smile, and Stiles gives him a full one in return. It had felt good to laugh. Normal. Right.

Derek takes the glass from him and sets it on the nightstand before he climbs into bed beside Stiles. They curl up again, Stiles resting his head half on Derek’s chest and half on a pillow he stuffs under Derek’s arm.

Derek clicks off the light and they lay there in the dark, breathing softly.

“I do want to try again,” Stiles whispers, unwilling to break the comfortable air in the room with something approaching his normal volume.

“Stiles…”

“But maybe…” And here Stiles hesitates because while he’s sure of what he wants, he’s not sure how to phrase it right. “Maybe you should be the one in charge.”

Derek sucks in a sharp breath.

Stiles can practically hear Derek going over potential responses in his head, and actually hears his lips smack together a few times as he opens his mouth to say something and then stops.

He finally appears to settle on a response when there’s another deep breath and then, “There’s no need to rush.”

“But I want to,” Stiles responds, trying not to whine. Now that the light’s off and the excitement (terror) of the evening has calmed, he feels somewhat restless.

Derek’s fingers start carding through his hair and Stiles smiles as he thinks of how he had wanted to do that to Derek all evening until they fell asleep. He sort of wishes he had.

“When you’re ready,” Derek says noncommittally, and Stiles huffs.

“I can still make decisions, you know.” And then, feeling the phantom sensation of pointy teeth nipping the air at the nape of his neck, he adds, “It really is me.”

Derek presses a kiss to his forehead.

“I know it is. But we can talk about it later, okay? I think some rest would do us both good.”

“Alright,” Stiles concedes, settling down again. He’s not sure how long he’ll be able to sleep without a nightmare sending him thrashing awake or worse, but Derek is solid and warm and reassuring underneath him, even if sleeping on his chest is going to give Stiles the worst neck pain ever. “Goodnight, Derek.”

“Go to sleep, Stiles.”

“Goodnight, Sourwolf.”

Derek snorts softly.

“Goodnight,” he says, and pulls Stiles a little closer.

 


	2. A Gift of Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles is taking back control. And if that means giving it Derek, well, he trusts Derek with his life. His emotions and his heart can't be that much of a stretch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'll consider this story done for now, although if I get bitten by the writing bug, I may expand it again. Thank you so much for all the support.

It’s three weeks later that either of them breach the subject of what happened that night in the hotel room.

In the time in between, Stiles and Derek have held hands twice in the comfort and silence of the cleaned and rearranged loft, Stiles working on homework and Derek reading a book.

They’ve also kissed once. It happened in the Toyota one night after Derek had driven Stiles home from the loft because he’d read a chapter in his textbook about Japanese internment camps and his hands started shaking so hard he kept dropping his keys when he tried to leave.

Stiles had given Derek a shaky smile when they’d pulled into the Stilinski driveway and parked. Derek had returned the smile with a half one of his own before he leaned quickly over the console and pressed his lips to Stiles’. Stiles had hesitated for a moment before pressing forward into the kiss, meeting Derek halfway.

After they broke apart, Stiles had worked his jaw a few times, trying to ask a question or say anything at all, but he’d just ended up smiling for real for the first time in a long time. Derek’s eyes went a little soft at that. And then his eyebrows went up when the porch light started flicking on and off.

Stiles had twisted around to see his dad in the doorway, hand behind the frame obviously flicking the light switch. Stiles had turned to Derek, who, to Stiles’ amusement, actually looked a little intimidated. He’d jerked his chin at the door and Stiles had exited the car, laughing the entire walk up the driveway as Derek reversed out of it.

He’d seized his dad in a hug at the door and got a gratifyingly strong hug in return before they’d entered the house for a long chat.

It’s a week after their kiss that they go out for pizza together. They’re splitting a large Hawaiian pie together and Stiles is expounding upon the history of pizza. It’s midway through his talk on the finer points of the Chicago/New York-style debate that he starts paying attention to the whispers around them.

There’s plenty that feature the phrase “that Hale kid” and “the whole family died in a fire,” but more and more he picks out the phrase “Stilinski boy” and “they say he’s connected to all those murders.”

Stiles doesn’t notice when he stops talking, but Derek does. Before Stiles really realizes it, the pizza in front of him is in a box and Derek is scribbling his signature on a credit card receipt. Derek holds out his hand after leaving the booth and Stiles takes it, grabbing the pizza box with his free hand even though his appetite has fled.

The drive back to the loft is taken in near silence, save for Stiles shuffling the pizza box on his knees every few minutes so his legs don’t get too warm.

Derek effortlessly slides back the heavy loft door and takes the pizza box from Stiles after gesturing him inside. Derek heads off to the small kitchen area while Stiles clicks on the lights and wanders into the main part of the loft, eyes skipping over the areas he still can’t bear to look at because of the events that had taken place there (Boyd dead in the center, the wall he…the Nogitsune had tossed Derek into, the spot where his Dad had stood as he put cuffs around Stiles’ wrists).

He shucks off his plain black hoodie, another piece of new clothing he’d bought after the Nogitsune. It keeps him warm when he’s so, so cold (he understands, at least to a small degree, why Malia had wanted her fur coat back so badly now) and it has no memories associated with it, which can only be a good thing. Throwing the hoodie to the side of the bed, he starts toying with the hem of his white T-shirt.

He pulls the shirt off before he can overthink what he’s doing, throwing it into the same space as his hoodie. He toes off his red-and-white skater shoes before hopping awkwardly on one foot after the other to pull off his socks with his right index finger and thumb.

Stiles hesitates for a long moment with his thumbs hovering over the button of his jeans, but he finally pushes the small brass button through the buttonhole and pulls down his zipper as well. He skims out of his jeans, stepping out of them one foot as a time after he’s got them down around this ankles. He then gathers his clothes and shoes up into a messy little pile and shoves it to the far side of Derek’s nightstand, which is still next to Derek’s bed in the corner of the loft.

He hears Derek’s knocking around in the kitchen start to taper off and rushes to do what he’s been thinking about since that kiss in the Toyota.

Moonlight is streaming in through the gigantic windows that dominate Derek’s loft, dappling the floor with streams of light where it breaks past the clouds and the window frames.

Stiles picks one of the biggest lit areas, a combined pool of moonlight and the soft glow of one of the loft’s light fixtures, which is just to the front and left of the bed. Clad now in just a pair of blue plaid boxers, he kneels down on the hard, cold floor of the loft, bows his head, and waits.

He hears Derek walk back into the room and pause, and his breathing picks up.

Stiles tries to keep still, but he can’t help fidgeting a little. He never thought not having control of his limbs would feel right, feel good, but the fidgeting from his ADHD and anxiety is so much different from the unnatural stillness that the Nogitsune had forced on his limbs that the movement is a comfort.

Derek’s footsteps start up again until Stiles can see the tips of his boots in front of his knees. And then Derek is kneeling down in front of him, tracing his right pointer finger up Stiles’ throat until he reaches his chin, which he pushes up.

“What’s this?” Derek asks when their eyes lock.

“I…” Stiles swallows hard. “I want to try again.”

Derek hums softly, running his thumb back and forth over Stiles’ cheek. Stiles shudders, both from the sensation and from the chill of the loft. The enormous and numerous loft windows may look neat, but they’re also sort of a heat sink.

“Okay,” Derek says, “but I think we need to set some more ground rules.” He moves his hand down to Stiles’ bare arm, chafing his bicep. “How about we get into bed for that conversation?”

Stiles nods, grateful for the way Derek is taking charge. Derek helps him to his feet and Stiles gets under the covers. Derek strips off his leather jacket, gray Henley, boots, jeans and socks, which leaves him in just a snug pair of black boxer briefs with a gray waistband. Derek climbs under the covers as well, turning onto his side to stare at Stiles, who does the same.

“I think we should go to the three-safeword system,” Derek says. Stiles nods, because he’s been reading up on everything from proper BDSM etiquette to safewords to aftercare. Also, because he happened to go down several rabbit holes, he’s read about some of the kinks he thinks he might enjoy, and, on one particular foray, learned all about werewolf knots from a fiction site that occasionally cut uncomfortably close to what he knew was actually true.

“Red, yellow, green?” Stiles asks.

“For stop, slow down and keep going,” Derek agrees. Then, hesitantly, he adds, “I won’t be mad if we stop. This is to make you feel comfortable. Me too.”

That makes Stiles feel a little better, that Derek wants that same assurance. He doesn’t want to be coddled (except in certain circumstances. That Internet search had been eye-opening as well as arousing), but if Derek is on board, it’s okay.

“That sounds good,” Stiles says. He reaches out under the covers and Derek grabs his hand before Stiles can put it on his chest.

“Limits?” Derek asks, tugging Stiles’ hand up so he can plant soft, gentle kisses over Stiles’ knuckles. Stiles shudders in pleasure at the warm, damp press of lips against his dry skin.

“None,” Stile says, and Derek scowls at him.

“No lying,” Derek snaps. “You lie and we stop.”

Stiles cringes, burying half his face in the soft pillow under his head.

“Don’t yell,” he whispers. “Please, don’t yell.”

Derek sighs and squeezes his hand before he says, “Okay. That’s a limit. What else?”

“No watersports or…or scat.”

Derek wrinkles his nose in disgust, which Stiles finds kind of adorable.

“Agreed. Same. Keep going.”

“Good, because I was totally going to ask you about marking and I probably could have worked up to it; the pee, not the other thing, but…”

“Stiles,” Derek interrupts, rolling his eyes. “I don’t want to mark my territory by peeing on you.”

“Oh, uh, good. Right. Because like I said, I could be cool with it, but…” Derek just gestures impatiently with his free hand for Stiles to move on. Stiles takes a deep breath before continuing with “I don’t want to be humiliated. Or for you to talk down to me. I’m not a kid. I haven’t been a kid in a very long time.”

“I don’t want to do that either.” Derek starts shifting his thumb back and forth over Stiles’ knuckles, their joined hands now resting between them in the center of the bed.

“I think I’ll be okay with bondage, but not in a chair. Never tie me to a chair.” He thinks of the Eichen House basement, being bound to that chair, helpless, as Malia’s life was threatened. He also thinks of having his mouth taped shut by Deaton in the McCall’s living room because shutting him up meant shutting up the Nogitsune. And then he thinks of the mind-breaking sensation of the Nogitsune throwing him up as a pile of bandages. “No tape over my mouth either. And never use bandages. Ever. Ever. Never ever.”

He shivers hard, shifting a little closer to Derek.

“No chairs and no tape and no bandages,” Derek agrees easily. “But I…uh…may have gotten some cuffs if you want to try them. Leather ones.” Stiles watches in fascination as a delicate pink blush blooms across Derek’s cheekbones.

“Who are you, and what have you done with Derek Hale?” he demands with a laugh that he promptly chokes on due to Derek’s suddenly solemn gaze. When he thinks it over, he realizes it’s a question that could have easily been asked of him just weeks ago. “Can we forget I asked that?”

His hands start to shake a little as his mind provides him with a booming, echoing soundtrack of the Nogitsune’s rattling voice shouting “Let me in!”

And then Derek squeezes his hand, hard, and he’s back in the loft, back mostly naked in Derek’s bed with an equally clothed Derek across from him.

“You’re you,” Derek murmurs. “You’re right here.”

Stiles’ breathing stutters, but then evens out again.

“Don’t bring it up,” he begs. “I still can’t…I’m trying, but it’s still…”

“Alright,” Derek says easily, like Stiles hasn’t worked himself halfway into yet another panic attack. “I won’t talk about it during this.” Stiles is pretty sure there’s an implied “We’ll talk about it some other time” at the end of that sentence, but right now he’s too grateful that Derek’s dropping the subject to care.

“Nothing over my face. We should probably write this stuff down. That’s what responsible people do when they do this sort of thing, right? And, oh god, I’ve barely let you talk. You probably have a lot of things you want to knock off the list. I’m so sorry for being so selfish and I…”

Derek leans forward and kisses him. Stiles tries to keep speaking for a moment, but it’s pretty hard when Derek’s tongue is invading his mouth.

When Derek finally pulls away from him, which is when Stiles is breathless and panting, he smirks.

“Should have done that sooner,” he says. Stiles reaches out his free hand and gently smacks the top of Derek’s head.

“Rude,” he huffs, trying to play it off as a joke even though he’s actually upset.

Derek’s smirk softens into a smile.

“It’s not selfish to say you want something, Stiles. I asked you. I’m glad you can tell me these things.”

He pauses before continuing “And you’re right, I’ve got some…issues to deal with myself. A lot of them have to do with consent and…” he fumbles to a stop. “If we do this, you’re going to have to accept that I want to…”

“To…?” Stiles says, noting the slightly constipated look on Derek’s face that’s halfway between the way he looks when he growls and a sympathetic gaze.

“To take care of you. That you trusting me to do that is something I want very badly. For both our sakes.”

Stiles thinks of the ramshackle pack Derek threw together, of the way he always fought so hard (and always failed) to keep everyone safe. He wants to say something cool and suave, something that will show off how mature he is, but he only manages a shaky “I’ll try.” Derek’s face softens further.

“That’s all I ask.”

“So…uh,” Stiles reaches up and scratches above his ear with his free hand. “Do we…uh…start?”

Derek snorts before his gaze turns smoldering. Stiles had always wondered where romance novels got that term, but now that he’s looking at it, he gets it. He absolutely gets it.

“On your stomach, center of the bed. _Now_.”

Stiles finds himself moving before he’s really thought about it, doing an awkward wriggle to get to the bed’s center. Derek squeezes his hand one more time before releasing him and leaving the bed completely.

Stiles shuffles the pillow he was lying on over and stuffs it beneath his chin, which leaves him looking straight at the rough brick wall of the loft. Derek is shuffling around the contents of one of the nightstand drawers when Stiles looks over.

“Close your eyes,” Derek says without looking.

Stiles thinks about protesting, but does what Derek asked.

With his vision plunged into darkness, Stiles has to concentrate more to figure out what’s going on. To Stiles’ shock, Derek starts narrating his actions.

“I’m getting some massage oil I bought for you out,” he says. “Then I’m going to tuck those blankets in around your hips, leaving your back bare. You’ve really started to fill out those broad shoulders of yours. It suits you.”

Stiles buries his face in the pillow, hoping it will block Derek’s view of his face. It does leave him with a deep breath of Derek’s scent though, which is almost enough to distract him.

Until Derek starts talking again, that is.

“I’m going to rub this oil all over you. I’m going to work your muscles until they’re all loose, until it’s a struggle for you to get up without help. How does that sound?”

“Good!” Stiles squeaks into the pillow.

Derek taps the top knob of Stiles’ spine, which startles Stiles enough that he comes an inch off the bed.

“Color?” Derek asks, and he sounds bemused.

Stiles twists his head to the side and says “Green.” It’s disconcerting not to be able to see Derek, but not enough for him to call this off already.

“Good. You don’t have to wait to tell me if you want to use the other colors, but I expect you to answer when I ask. Do you understand?”

“Green…uh, yes.”

“Good,” Derek murmurs.

As promised, the blankets are tugged down to Stiles’ waist and carefully tucked under his still-too-sharp hipbones (his appetite is better, but he still gives into the illusion of control that is skipping a meal every once in a while). The move gives his cock a little bit of extra room to thicken and harden in the space between him and the mattress.

Then Derek is back on the bed. Stiles feels Derek’s knees depress the mattress on either side of his hips before Derek settles back against the swell of Stiles’ ass, carefully keeping most of his weight aloft, but using just enough of it to pin Stiles firmly down.

“Relax,” Derek rumbles. And then his warm, wet hands land on Stiles’ shoulder blades. Stiles jerks again, but he doesn’t get all that far under all of Derek’s points of contact. “What you’re doing? That’s the opposite of relaxing.”

“Shut up.”

Derek chuckles before he moves his hands down Stiles’ spine and then presses his thumbs in at the base on either side before dragging them up. A line of fire follows Derek’s thumbs, along with a series of frankly disconcerting pops that have Stiles muffling a groan into his pillow as his spine realigns.

“You broke me,” he mumbles.

Derek replicates the motion four more times, and each time it’s still a gorgeous kind of agony, although the pain lessens with each repetition.

Then, Derek is breathing right against Stiles’ left ear, a dark murmur of “I’ll really break you later” leaving Stiles shuddering for entirely different reasons. He tries to shift his hips against the mattress, but with Derek sitting where he is, he has no chance of moving.

Derek doesn’t do anything sexual, though. Instead, he digs his thumbs straight into the tension Stiles hadn’t realized he’d been carrying in his shoulders, and then sweeps it away with strong strokes of his fingers.

By the time Derek starts tugging the covers off his legs, Stiles is fully hard and he can’t even find the energy to be angry that Derek isn’t doing anything about it because Derek is making him feel so _good._ And feeling good, feeling well for that matter, has been something of a foreign concept to Stiles for a very long time. The all-over ache that plagued him after his separation from the Nogitsune had lessened some when the fox spirit was trapped in the triskele box, but it’s lingering still. He tries not to let the others draw his pain, but they still manage it more often than he cares to think about.

As he’s done multiple times throughout the massage process, Derek slicks up his hands with oil (Stiles doesn’t need his eyes to recognize the familiar splorting sound a squeeze bottle makes). He then drags his hands down both of Stiles’ legs before attacking the right leg with vigor.

“Color?” Derek asks as he starts pulverizing Stiles’ left leg with the flats of his hands.

“Muh?”

And then Derek stops. Completely. He lifts his hands (his wonderful, wicked, miracle-working hands) and his body away from Stiles.

“Color?” he asks again, and the levity of before is missing from his tone.

Stiles peels himself away from the puddle of drool that’s amassed on the cotton pillowcase, but he keeps his eyes closed when he turns toward Derek because he wants him to go back to being happy.

“Gr…green. Good. Vocabulary-destroying good.” He flips the pillow around to the dry side and flaps his hand behind him at Derek as he settles back down. “All good. Please don’t be upset. Green. Green.”

Stiles hears Derek sigh, and then Derek’s warmth is back as Derek drapes himself over Stiles’ back, hooking his chin over one of Stiles’ still-slick shoulders.

“You have to tell me,” Derek says, “when I ask. You have to.”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says, and he feels tears gathering under his eyelids. “I’m really sorry.”

“Sssh,” Derek murmurs. “I’m not angry. You just…you have to tell me.”

“Okay,” Stiles whispers. He feels a few of the tears slip out, but Derek doesn’t say anything.

Stiles wants to be better. He wants to feel warm and be happy and not look at every place in Beacon Hills and think of the people he (the Nogitsune) killed or had killed.

He tries not to think of the empty spot in their circle of friends, the hole where someone else should be, _would_ be if it weren’t for the Nogitsune and the Nemeton and oni and kitsunes. But Allison is gone and even Aiden (asshole that he was) is gone and so many people have died that just got caught up in the Nogitsune’s horrible tricks.

“Yellow,” Stiles says, because he can feel himself spiraling away into “what ifs” and “should have dones” and faraway places, even anchored down by Derek’s weight and the solid feel of the pillowtop mattress and the cotton sheets beneath his body. He’s not hard anymore, and that feels like a failure. His sex drive is nowhere near what it was, and it’s both a blessing and a curse. He often doesn’t have the energy for anything related to sex, but he sometimes feels like he’d welcome the distraction jerking off would provide.

“What do you need?” Derek asks.

“Tell me…” Stiles feels his breath catch, and forces the next words out. “Tell me where I am.”

“You’re in my loft,” Derek says softly. “You’re in my bed, where it’s safe. You’re warm and I’m here with you. You’re feeling good because I massaged all that tension you’ve had coiling you up away. You’re probably feeling a little loopy and weird because doing that dumped a ton of chemicals into your system. I want to get up and get you a glass of water or two to drink, because you’re going to feel worse without them. But I don’t want to leave you until you can tell me I can. Do you believe me?”

Stiles hesitates for a moment. It’s not that he doesn’t believe Derek, but there’d been so many lies he’d spun when he was possessed, along with so many, many awful truths.

“Stiles, do you believe me?” Derek is starting to sound worried again. Stiles wonders what he was like directly after the fire, what had happened to the boy who’d killed his first love after his second burned his family alive.

He reaches up his right hand and Derek covers it with his own, intertwining their fingers before pressing Stiles’ hand back into the pillow and the mattress.

“I believe you,” Stiles says, and he really does. He can smell Derek’s forest and leather musk, feel the warmth of his skin all along his own, still slick and heated from Derek’s touch; and hear his heartbeat thudding in a slightly off-beat twin rhythm to his own. “Green. I would…I could use some water.”

Derek doesn’t ask him if he’s sure, and that confidence in him is sort of bolstering to Stiles. Derek does get off him though, tugging the blankets up around Stiles’ shoulders as the air in the room hits him and sends a shiver cascading through his system. The top sheet sticks to Stiles’ back, which makes him wrinkle his nose in disgust, but he tries to ignore it in favor of calming down his heart rate and listening to Derek get him a glass of water from the kitchen.

When Derek comes back, he sits down on the right side of the bed, just far enough away that Stiles doesn’t immediately roll in his direction because of the shift in mattress tension.

“I want you to, slowly, open your eyes and look at me,” Derek says.

Stiles does as he’s been asked, carefully blinking his eyes open. When he looks at Derek, the concern laced through his calm expression is easy to discern.

“Are we ever going to be okay?” trembles off his tongue and out from between his lips before he can reel the words back in.

Derek just looks pained as he helps Stiles turn over and then sit up. Stiles sways a bit as the head rush kicks in (and it looked like Derek hadn’t been kidding about that woozy feeling being a byproduct of the massage), so he hardly notices when Derek takes hold of his shoulder.

He does notice when Derek presses the glass to his lips and starts to tip it up. Stiles wants to protest that he’s not a child, but he remembers Derek saying he wanted to take care of him, and his own promise that he would try to let him.

So he slumps down a little, letting Derek guide his head so he can easily accept small sips from the glass. When half of the water is gone, Derek sets the glass on the nightstand and twists the switch on the small lamp he has there, darkening the room a little. He then tucks Stiles into the crook of his arm before arranging the covers over them in a cozy little blanket den.

“Are we done?” Stiles asks, then hastens to add “For the night?”

Derek hums softly, which is a habit Stiles has never associated with him.

“Do you want to be? Or would you like to do something more?”

Stiles turns the idea over in his head. He hadn’t safeworded, so technically they were still in the “scene.” (Another useful vocabulary term from Google.) He was wrung out though, disappointed in himself for losing control of his thoughts and for disappointing Derek. He was especially upset he’d disappointed Derek actually, especially when the man had asked so little of him, and done so much for him in return. He makes up his mind.

“Just…go slow?”

Derek hums again, but Stiles can see him accepting the sincerity in his words. He slips a little further under the covers, shifting Stiles onto his back, before he asks, “Color?”

“Green,” Stiles says decisively, pleased when that makes a small grin appear on Derek’s face.

“Good.” Derek then looks more than a little awkward as he asks, “Does your dad know you’re staying here tonight?”

He does. Stiles had texted him on the way back from the pizza place, saying that he was probably going to stay overnight at Derek’s and that he would call if he planned to come home.

“Green,” Stiles says again.

Derek’s cheeks get coated with a light blush again.

“Does he…uh…?”

“Know about our awkward night of a blowjob that didn’t get anywhere close and me freaking out so bad that I had a panic attack? He knows about the second part, but not what caused it.”

“Oh…Hmm.”

Stiles props himself up on elbows and asks him, in a tone that very clearly implies that he thinks Derek is an idiot, “Did you _want_ me to tell the Sheriff what we were doing?”

“No. Well, maybe. If you want to. Would that make you feel comfortable?”

Stiles rolls his eyes before he sees how serious Derek is. And he realizes, again, how badly Kate Argent tore Derek’s mind up, how she still terrorizes him in his nightmares and in his waking thoughts.

“It wouldn’t make me feel more comfortable,” he says. “I’m comfortable with you. Just you. All the time. That’s enough for me. Is it for you?”

Derek just nods, apparently struck speechless.

Stiles balances himself enough that he can reach out and pat his right hand over Derek’s left cheek, the rough grain of his stubble scraping against Stiles’ palm.

“Then can we get back to fun sexytimes?”

Derek snorts.

“Not if you ever call what we’re doing that again.”

Stiles pouts, but flops back on the bed.

“Spoilsport.”

“Brat.”

Stiles’ cutting retort is lost when Derek suddenly palms him through his boxers. He’s still soft, but the expert manipulation of Derek’s palm and fingers has him feeling pleasure regardless.

“Hnngh,” he manages, and Derek smiles before he ducks his head down and starts lipping at Stiles’ left nipple.

“I just need you to feel good,” he says against Stiles’ chest. “That’s all you need to do right now. Can you do that for me, Stiles?”

Hearing his name is both a comfort and a turn-on. It’s nice to be himself again.

“Yes. Green. So green. Emerald. All the shades of green.”

Derek chuckles, which sends hot, damp air gusting over Stiles’ nipples. He thrusts his chest up toward Derek’s mouth, seeking more contact.

The older man obliges, latching onto Stiles’ flesh with his teeth this time. He gently worries both nipples, palm still working at Stiles’ crotch. Stiles doesn’t think he can get hard again, not after his near-panic killed the erection he _had_ managed, but Derek doesn’t seem like it bothers him, so Stiles resolves not to let it bother him too much either. It’s an effort, but he only has one job to do. Derek had told him that.

He deliberately lets go of some of the tension he’d gathered back into his body, and Derek makes a pleased noise.

“That’s it. So good for me.” He leans up and plants a short kiss on the corner of Stiles’ lips, just a warm tease, before he’s ducking back down, licking a path down Stiles’ chest. Stiles is still a little self-conscious about the way his ribs stick out, about how pale his skin is, but Derek doesn’t appear to care. He does, however, pull an interesting face after his third or fourth lick.

Stiles feels a laugh bubble out of him when he figures it out.

“Massage oil not really tasty?”

Derek scrapes his teeth over his tongue a few times.

“It wasn’t really apparent on your nipples. The rest of you, however…”

Stiles giggles, which feels weird but nice.

Derek, tongue still caught between his teeth, just grimaces.

“Should have used a different brand,” he mutters, before turning his attention back to Stiles with what looks like some seriously focused intent. “Or maybe some body paint would be appropriate next time. Swirl these perky little nipples,” he tweaks one, and Stiles keens, “with chocolate syrup and suck on them until you beg me to stop. Play connect-the-dots with your moles, following every delicious line with my tongue. Maybe I should drip caramel sauce all over your cock and lick it off. One. Tasty. Stripe. At. A. Time. Hmm?”

Stiles feels the breath he’d just taken in get stuck in his throat. Derek moves his hand a little more firmly against his crotch, lips quirking up in satisfaction.

“I want to do so many things to you. You’ll feel so good. I want to rim you until you cry from the pleasure. I want to shove thick beads into your ass and watch you squirm until I rip them out as you come, making your orgasm last forever. I want to put those leather cuffs I got on you and bind you against the bedframe so you have no choice but to accept every wonderful, wicked thing I want to do to you. I want to come inside you and then shove a plug into you, then fuck you again and again until you’re so full you can’t remember what it’s like not to be stuffed with my come.”

Whimpering, Stiles shifts into Derek’s palm. He can feel something warm coiling in his belly, and he wonders if Derek’s imagery is the cause. It’s certainly some incredible motivation for him to buck his hips up for some extra friction.

“Holy shit, when did you start talking this much?” he gasps, because it’s really the only thing he can think to say besides a litany of curse words and Derek’s name.

“I may have…researched a little.” Before Stiles can really dig into the hilarious (and sort of heartwarming) implications of that, Derek rushes out “But you’re pretty inspiring.”

Stiles lets out a noise that might have been described by other people (not him) as a purr.

“I like it when you talk. S’nice. Very green.”

“Yeah? Wonder if I could get you off with my words alone. Paint you such a dirty picture that you’d come in your pants.” Derek sucks Stiles’ left earlobe into his mouth, sucking briefly before gnawing a little on Stiles in a way Stiles is pretty sure he shouldn’t find as stimulating as he does.

Derek spreads a little more massage oil over his hands before returning to his ministrations, running his hand up the leg of Stiles’ boxers this time. His pinky finger starts tracing down Stiles’ taint, stroking up and down before pressing the pad of his finger against Stiles’ hole; not in, just against.

“Try later,” Stiles gets out. His cock is about at half-mast now, but the feeling churning and winding up his gut is about ready to release into some other form of energy.

“You just have to feel good,” Derek murmurs. “Just feel good for me, Stiles.”

Stiles has never orgasmed dry before, but the knot unspooling in his gut, sending pleasure throughout his system, is unlikely to be anything else. He gasps, then whines as Derek’s hand keeps moving, gentling him through the cascade of sensation. He feels hot all over, and the dampness inside his boxers is from both the oil and the precome he’d started leaking at one point.

He only realizes he’s sobbing when Derek’s fingers (the clean ones, not the ones that had been massaging his cock and balls) come up to brush the tears away from his face.

“You did so good, Stiles. So good.”

Stiles pushes up into the touch a little, but he also feels strangely like he would prefer to be alone all of a sudden. The juxtaposition of wanting solitude and wanting Derek to wrap him in his arms and never leave him is jarring to his afterglow, but he takes a few deep breaths and the feelings settle down into a hazy sort of soup again.

“You?” Stiles murmurs when he feels Derek’s hard cock pressing against his hip. He means it to sound more like a statement, something along the lines of “Give me a minute to rest and then I’ll blow your mind,” but it comes out as a question instead.

“M’fine,” Derek says, the words partially muffled into Stiles’ hair, which Derek is dropping soft kisses into. “Just wanted you to feel good. That’s all you had to do for me, and you did it so well.”

Stiles preens a little at the praise, but he still feels that nagging sense of obligation (and desire too, definitely desire) clawing at the cozy little corner of the headspace he’s settled into. Derek pulls away and rolls off of the bed, padding off in just his underwear to the bathroom. When he comes back, just as Stiles is starting to feel a little unmoored from the rest of the world and his emotions, he’s carrying a small pile of towels and two pairs of what Stiles assumes are clean underwear.

Derek carefully pulls Stiles’ boxers off, flinging the stained fabric somewhere off to the side before wiping at the mess on Stiles’ dick and hips and balls with a warm, damp washcloth.

Stiles squirms a little at the sensation, and he thinks he hears Derek murmur “Beautiful.” He’s so caught up in Derek’s soft caresses against his skin that he wishes he could get hard for him, do more for him, _be_ more for him.

But then Derek tells him how good he is, and Stiles tries hard to believe it.

Eventually, Derek finishes his ministrations by toweling him dry before he slides a pair of clean, plain black boxers up Stiles’ legs. They’re a tad too big for him, and Stiles realizes with a jolt (and he can’t fathom why he didn’t realize it before) that they belong to Derek.

Derek repeats the actions on himself as Stiles watches, although this time the towels get thrown to the side and the underwear he puts on is a duplicate of the black boxer-briefs he was wearing earlier.

He’s still half-hard beneath the fabric and Stiles rolls onto his side and reaches out for Derek’s crotch. Derek catches his wrists and presses them into the mattress with his left hand, using his right to stroke his fingers through Stiles’ hair as he climbs into the bed and settles down next to Stiles.

“But,” Stiles protests sleepily, already feeling sleep dragging at him. He hasn’t felt a desire to sleep like this in a long time. Derek has made him desire a lot of things again.

“Just go to sleep,” Derek half-whispers, half-hums. “I’ll feel so good if you can do that for me.”

And the thing of it is, Stiles _likes_ making Derek happy. And if getting some shuteye is all it takes to make Derek smile (and he deserves to smile after everything that’s happened to him, he deserves to smile all the time), Stiles decides he can do that and let Derek worry about the rest.

“Okay,” he murmurs.

He pulls his hands up to his chest and moves closer to Derek. Derek lets his wrists go when he shifts, but Stiles thinks of what he really wants, thinks of desire and safety and comfort. He grabs Derek’s hands as he curls against him, wrapping Derek’s fingers around his wrists again in a firm grip. 

Derek makes a pleased noise and whispers into Stiles’ hair “So good for me, Stiles. That’s all I want, for us to be good together.” 

He nuzzles Stiles’ hair before continuing “And I think we can.” 

It’s the last thing Stiles hears before he drifts off to sleep, body curved into Derek’s bulk. And because Stiles believes in Derek, he starts to believe it too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed this story, please leave a comment. They are always greatly appreciated.


End file.
